


Metamorphe

by exfanficaddict



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood Friends, Gen, M/M, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5033998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exfanficaddict/pseuds/exfanficaddict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short list of things Oikawa doesn't need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First work! Will be 3-4 chapters, spanning childhood to college age.
> 
> Tags to be added as necessary.
> 
> I'm not from Japan, so I'm sorry about any cultural discrepancies. I also don't know anything about children, so sorry for any scientific discrepancies.

A list of things Oikawa doesn't need:

 

 

1\. Help

 

"I'm going to find it first, Iwa-chan, and then you'll be sorry."

They were seven, shirtless and sunburnt, kneeling among the roots of the tall trees in the Oikawas' backyard. Iwaizumi had dirt in his left eye and couldn't stop picking at the cut on his arm that had been itching for the last hour. He scratched it again, rubbing only more dirt into the wound.

"Stupid Iwa-chan! You're not supposed to touch it!"

"You're the stupid one, Stupidkawa! This is all your fault!" 

Oikawa huffed, turning back to his search on the ground.

Iwaizumi despaired; there was no chance, no chance at all, that they would find the little red cartridge. It had been a first-edition Pokemon Red, given to him by his uncle, too. He could have saved it and become rich like his classmate said. He could have sold it for a trillion yen.

But no. Instead, he was stuck in this stupid yard on this stupid search all because of  _stupid_ Oikawa who'd just _had_ to hold it himself. He bet Oikawa hadn't even felt bad when their struggle had sent the cartridge flying into the woods. He bet Oikawa didn't even feel sorry at all.

Why had he even come over today?

Frustrated, overheated, and full of self-righteous anger, Iwaizumi shoved Oikawa —  _hard_ — into the nearest shrub.

Oikawa went down like a felled tree, landing with a crash and a squawk. His arms reflexively came up to shield his face, but he still, Iwaizumi noticed vindictively, ended up with a mouthful of leaves and twigs dragging at his hair. 

Oikawa spat and hissed and soon, unsurprisingly, with a practiced tremble of his lower lip, began to cry. He cried and cried, fat alligator tears streaking down his rosy cheeks, and Iwaizumi simply watched until the other boy’s grimance morphed into a glare and he opened his mouth up to scream—

Iwaizumi tried his hardest to muffle him, but his reflexes had never been as fast as the other boy's. Oikawa's hand whipped up to stop his at the wrist.

"MAMA!" Oikawa shrieked woundedly.

Feet pounded on the hardwood, and soon a fuzzy nest of brown curls appeared at the back door. Mama Oikawa had always come running.

"Tooru! What are you crying about?"

Iwaizumi couldn't meet her brown eyes, so like those of the offended boy next to him. Instead, he dropped his hand and glared narrowly at Stupidkawa's knees, just daring him to reveal the truth of the situation.

There was a brief pause.

"Iwa—Iwa-chan lost his game, the one he got for his _birthday_!" This was punctuated by small sobs. "And — and I fell into the bush looking for it, mama. My eye stings. And Iwa-chan is hurt, too. Look what happened!" Oikawa thrust out his scratched knuckles.

Iwaizumi stared hard at the ground as soft footsteps padded near and a softer hand came down to caress his head. 

"Hajime, Hajime-chan," Mama Oikawa called.

But Iwaizumi didn't want to look up any more than he wanted to see Stupidkawa's face ever again. Anger stung his eyes and an apology stuck like gravel in his throat. His arm throbbed where her palms grazed over it, taking account of all his cuts and bruises. His wrist was damp where Oikawa still gripped it limply.

"You need to go in and clean that up," she said gently. "I'll come out later and help you two look."

He stepped towards her, stubbornly refusing to look at Oikawa, but at the last second, the grip on his wrist tightened. 

"It's okay, Mama," Oikawa said, his voice oddly pinched. "I don't need help. I feel better now. I can find it on my own."

Mama Oikawa sighed, looking from one boy to the other. Then she bent down to kiss her youngest child gently on the forehead. "Just a few more minutes, okay?"

"Mhm." Now it was Oikawa who didn't look at Iwaizumi, hands brought up to shade his eyes as he peered into the forest behind them.

Sniffling just a little, Iwaizumi trudged back towards the house, clutching Mama Oikawa's skirts and wondering about the boy, sorry and sore, still kneeling in the dirt behind him.

 

 

2\. Money

 

_Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!_

The happy little jingle danced around Iwaizumi's sunlit bedroom, where the two boys lazed on their backs on the floor. 

Iwaizumi’s body was jello. He felt like his body, even still, was sweating a small lake onto the hardwood, and his skin stuck painfully whenever he tried to move. Every breath brought stuffy, humid air into his lungs. His limbs were sprawled as far away from each other as physically possible. Oh, but he hated summer.

_Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!_

Iwaizumi groaned in irritation — at the weather, at the world, at Oikawa. "Hey, stop playing that game."

_Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!_

"I said--"

" _You're_ not going to play it, so _I_ have to play it." Oikawa's face was screwed up in concentration, his nose all but smearing against the GameBoy's screen. A pink tongue stuck out the side of his mouth. Iwaizumi thought he looked a bit dim.

"That's a dumb reason," Iwaizumi commented.

Oikawa rolled his eyes and then rolled away. "No, it’s not, Iwa-chan. Someone should play the game. It can’t just be sitting in its case all the time, you know!"

"I was supposed to sell it for a lot of money. That's what they told me to do." 

"That's what _who_ told you to do, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa nudged him in the side with his foot.

"Sakamoto said you can sell Pokemon Red for a trillion yen. Or more. Because it's rare. Don’t you know?" said Iwaizumi tartly. "Now I can't anymore because someone opened it up and used it already! And stop _kicking_ me!"

Oikawa sprang away from his halfhearted swipes. "Yeah, right. A trillion yen! That's enough to fly to Hawaii or — somewhere like that. Who would trade Pokemon for Hawaii?"

"What do you know about Hawaii, Stupidkawa?"

"It's pa-ra-dise," sang Oikawa, waving his arms over his head in a silly pantomime of hula dancing. "Pa-ra-dise!" Inspired, he swing his hips in wide circles and stomped his feet on the floor.

It struck Iwaizumi in that moment that funnily enough, Oikawa did look a bit like a Hawaiian dancer, long-haired and swaying with no shoes against the sunlight streaming into Iwaizumi’s room. 

It was the insufferable heat, and it was the striking silliness of a day spent doing absolutely nothing at all. It started with a tingling in the tips of his toes, and suddenly Iwaizumi was seized with giggles, which soon became body-shaking guffaws. His laughter rang in Oikawa’s ears. Oikawa tugged at his hair and shook his legs and puffed out his lips like a real beauty queen.

"Pa-ra- _dise_! Pa-ra- _dise_!" His high, fair voice bounced off the walls and tickled Iwaizumi's diaphragm. His feet thumped against the floorboards, rattling the GameBoy, momentarily forgotten.

Then there was a slap on the door.

"Hajime. You need to quiet down. I'm in the middle of an online meeting." His father's voice was strong and stern and hinted of punishments to come.

Heavy footfalls thumped away down the hallway.

The fun abruptly ceased. Iwaizumi massaged his aching ribs.

Then suddenly, Iwaizumi had Oikawa hugging against his side, too close and too warm. "Iwa-chan," he breathed wetly against his cheek, "Do you think your papa would let you go to Hawaii with me?"

Iwaizumi tried to shove him off. "My dad doesn't have a trillion yen, I think. Neither does yours."

"I don't need a trillion yen, Iwa-chan! I can just _fly_ —" Sticky hands gripped his face, and a gust of moist, hot air was blown straight into Iwaizumi's ear.

Iwaizumi jerked away and swung at Oikawa's curly head. "I'll make you fly when I kick you out the window, Stupidkawa!"

"Got you, Iwa-chan! Got you, got you, got you." _Thump, thump, thump._ "No, wait! Watch out for the GameBoy, Iwa-chan! The GameBoy! The Game—"

_Snap._

  

 

3\. Proof

 

It was two hours past their bedtime, and Iwaizumi had never been out so late before. He tried his best to move quietly, despite the guilt and adrenaline bubbling in his gut. His flip-flops slapped against the sidewalk, and he and his companion both cringed at the sound. Wordlessly, he stopped to take them off, then curled his toes against the cool, rough concrete.

An arm looped around his elbow. "Thank you for coming with me, Iwa-chan," said Oikawa, his pleased grin visible from outer space.

Iwaizumi did his requisite grumbling. "What else could I be doing right now?" he mumbled, shuffling closer to Oikawa. 

His excuse made no sense, and they both knew it. Oikawa grinned in response. He tugged Iwaizumi along towards the gate that opened to the beach.

That summer they were ten years old and on vacation together for the first time. For all the time they’d spent by it these past few days, Iwaizumi still didn’t like the ocean. It was loud and merciless and made him think of the first time he got tumbled in the surf. He still had nightmares about it sometimes: the aching press of saltwater in the back of his throat, the slide of seaweed through his clawing fingers, the impact of his head on the hard, wet sand.

They weren’t here for swimming, though. They were here to sit down on the white towel Oikawa had stolen from the bathroom, out of reach of the high tide, and investigate the stars that Oikawa swore were brimming with life. Their hobbies had never been quite the same after they’d broken Iwaizumi’s GameBoy.

"Sakamoto told me a story about a boy who travels to different planets," said Oikawa, fingers tracing out a distant constellation. "He showed me pictures, too."

Iwaizumi stared over his knees at the waves roiling below. "What kinds of pictures?"

"Of different planets, like I said," the other boy asserted, "And their flowers, and volcanoes, and baob—some kind of trees."

Iwaizumi wrinkled his nose, rooting his fingers into the sand around his feet. "Doesn’t sound like an alien planet to me. Alien planets don’t have any trees or flowers. Just red dirt and buildings."

"But how do you know, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa turned, his eyes twinkling. "I think maybe you came from a planet like that, though."

"I’m not an alien, Oikawa."

For just a moment, Oikawa looked perplexed. He rubbed the expression away with a hand before looking up again, frowningly slightly. "There's— There's a feeling that boy felt," he said slowly, "That in all the stars out there, there’s one that’s his." He paused. "I feel like that sometimes."

They contemplated the sky in silence.

"But how could you know?" Iwaizumi prompted softly, trying not to doubt.

Oikawa shook his head. "It’s like something's calling to me. Saying I should go home one day and that it’s waiting for me."

Iwaizumi chuckled. "You just think you're special, Specialkawa."

Oikawa dimpled in his direction. "But I _am_ special, Iwa-chan." 

Iwaizumi flopped back into the sand. "Special alien, Oikawa Tooru. But how are you going to prove it to us? Who’s going to believe in an alien that looks like one of us?"

"I don’t need proof, Iwa-chan," he said, cocking his head back, "You’ll all know soon enough."

Iwaizumi very much doubted that, but he didn’t say anything then. He smiled and watched the profile of Oikawa against the stars, Oikawa standing before the vast, deep blackness of the ocean at night. Slowly, slowly, his eyes slipped closed, and in that moment before everything shuttered to black, he thought he saw a bright light streak across the sky and swiftly disappear beyond the horizon. 

There was a little gasp at his side and a muttered prayer sent out into the night.

Iwaizumi had a vision of Oikawa sitting on a distant planet, leaning aginst an alien tree and sipping Hawaiian pineapple juice. It struck his half-asleep brain as both absurd and somehow right.

 _Specialkawa,_ he thought at the last, _My best friend, or something._

He fell asleep wondering what his friend had wished for.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it looks like this will be longer than 3-4 chapters...
> 
> This part is a little shorter. The next few are pretty important and are seriously kicking my butt.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me! Hope you are all enjoying it so far.

4\. Directions

 

It all starts with a box.

It was a small and unassuming thing, badly wrapped and stained with coffee. Iwaizumi's favorite uncle had pressed it into his hands in Tokyo Station as he was boarding the last train to Miyagi. "Here's an early birthday present, buddy," he'd said, wrapping the stocky 11-year-old in a tight hug. "You'll like it. You'll be big and strong now. Take care of your mom for me, all right?"

They'd shaken hands on it. Iwaizumi stepped onto the train feeling very big indeed.

Home was just like he remembered, albeit a little smaller. His father frowned in the rearview mirror as Iwaizumi gave his box an experimental shake. It jiggled hollowly. _To my nephew,_ the tag read, _Many happy returns._

Iwaizumi didn't know what that meant, but he simmered with curiosity.

On the the last day of Golden Week, Oikawa came over. Oikawa, who had grown like a weed that spring — who, for all his growth, was just as disappointingly reedy as ever. Oikawa, whose glittering eyes and grin he'd missed seeing. Those parts of him, at least, had yet to change.

His mother put the misshapen box on the top shelf of his closet after they'd scratched at its bindings once too often.

"Spoilsport," Oikawa moaned when Iwaizumi refused to help him reach it. "Stickler. Goody-goody."

But Iwaizumi would not be swayed. He'd been to a major city, after all, where people were louder and snootier than Oikawa at his worst. Yes, Iwaizumi had learned to deal with people in Tokyo.

"A cannonball," Oikawa guessed, peeking at it from his seat on the bedroom floor. "A frying pan. A mutant plant."

"It's light, like a beach ball," Iwaizumi replied, "And what would I do with a plant, Stupidkawa?"

"Probably kill it," the other boy said.

Iwaizumi was offended. "I'll kill you," he promised.

His mother urged them out of the house and away from their object of obsession. Under the setting sun, they bounded like colts, gripped with sudden and restless excitement. Their energies turned toward every manner of game that could be performed in Iwaizumi's small backyard: frog jumps, sumo, hand stands, limbo. Iwaizumi discovered a burning satisfaction in beating Oikawa at almost every one.

"Weak," he crowed as a hand-slam ended another bout of arm wrestling. His opponent grimaced sourly, muttering oaths of vengeance and rubbing at lanky wrists.

His hands were hot and his shoulders sore, but Iwaizumi soared on a wave of cool exhilaration. It was liberating, standing over Oikawa's pale form in the grass. He felt like he was touching fire with his bare hands. Why had they never done this before?

"What's the point?" snapped Oikawa, a terrible loser. "Don't forget who's still better at swimming."

"I don't see a pool," Iwaizumi said, soothed by the purring in his chest. "And I learned to swim last summer."

Oikawa's nostrils flared. "You're too perfect, Iwa-chan," he said, worrying at the bruises on his knobby knees. "I don't know what you'd even need birthday presents for."

"Agedashi tofu," Iwaizumi suggested.

Oikawa stood up very straight. "Nevermind," he said snippily, "I know what you should get after all."

So it was a few weeks later, after Iwaizumi had inhaled his tofu and thanked his parents for it, that he received another birthday present: a pot of hideous flowers.

"Tooru said you'd taken to keeping plants," Mama Oikawa explained, taken aback by Iwaizumi's badly masked look of rejection. "They're orchids." She hesitated. "There's some money, too."

"Th—Thank you, Oikawa-san," he stuttered, heat flooding his cheeks. He placed the alien plant aside, careful to keep its gaping pink maw facing away from him. His parents frowned silently. Beyond them, he spotted Oikawa grinning gleeful as a demon over an enormous slice of cake. His pink lips, smeared with black frosting, curled as he swallowed another piece.

Iwaizumi reminded himself that he was 12 years old now.

Still, it felt good to slam the door in Stupidkawa's smug face when the other boy trailed after him to his room later that night. The elder Oikawas had just bid them goodbye; the house was quiet with tension. After a brief struggle over the doorknob, the two boys approached the closet.

Oikawa's huffing breaths raised goosebumps on his back as Iwaizumi clambered up the tall shelves. His final present fell to the floor, knocked loose by his eager groping. It bounced and shuddered to a stop between them.

And in just a second—

The wrapping paper, barely there as it was, flew apart in their tug-of-war. It whirled like fairy dust and stuck in Iwaizumi's teeth when he sucked in air. It clung to Oikawa's new clothes as he stepped forward and beheld—

"A volleyball," Oikawa breathed.

Iwaizumi looked at him. "You know how to play?" he asked, eyes glinting with challenge.

"Sure," said Oikawa, smiling with all of his teeth. "I don't need directions to figure it out."


End file.
